All Things Come With A Price
by Gre3nleaf
Summary: Something Treville learns while sitting quietly in his chair and enjoying the short-lasting peace... My entry for the August Fete des Mousquetaires competition "Rest and Relaxation."


**All Things Come With A Price**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the musketeers... though I wish I did. *sighs***

 **Set around season 2, let's say, after d'Artagnan becomes a musketeer :) I'm not entirely sure if this can be classed as humour, but I'll put it as one of the genres anyway! Please enjoy, and let me know what you think! Thank you.**

 **This is also my entry for the August Fete des Mousquetaires competition "Rest and Relaxation."**

* * *

Treville sighed in content as he sat back in his chair, placing his feet on the table and closing his eyes, a small smile on his face. It was times like these that he loved the most. Times when he was able to sit back and rest. Times when he could relax and even fit in a nap somewhere between relishing in the quietness and thanking the Gods for the peace he had _finally_ been granted. Times when he could almost cry because he was off his feet and in a nice, comfortable chair.

Times when the musketeers weren't anywhere near him.

Now, don't take this the wrong way. Treville loved the – sorry, _his_ – boys with all his heart, but if there was one thing that annoyed him more than anything else, it was the fact that they just didn't seem to be able to keep themselves out of trouble. They were always getting themselves kidnapped or trapped or injured, and he was beginning to wish that they'd just die already and save him the trouble of having to rescue their irritating backsides.

They were lucky, really, that he was their captain, because if it was anyone else, they'd probably have been court-marshalled by now for incessant annoyingness… if that was a thing.

There were other musketeers that Treville oversaw, but thinking about it, they didn't really _need_ 'looking after' as he put it. They were quiet, excellent out on missions, and he barely heard from them. Athos, Aramis, Porthos and d'Artagnan were the same – apart from the _quiet_ bit of course – but they seemed to need a lot more looking after than their comrades did.

The captain wondered, as he sat _peacefully_ pondering in his cushioned chair, if they did it on purpose, or if they really were just small children in adult bodies.

Probably the second.

Yes, definitely the second.

He could understand d'Artagnan acting like they did (not really), but Athos, Aramis and Porthos? Seriously? They were almost as old as _him!_

Was this how children normally acted around their fathers? And yes, _father_ , because that was what he saw himself as. And it wasn't because of the way he had to keep an eye on them all every second of every day (Constance had once joked that he would be better off with eyes on the back of his head, and he was beginning to think that was true), it was because of the love he held for them. Even d'Artagnan, who hadn't been in his life as long as the others had, had found his rightful place in his captain's heart alongside his brothers.

Treville cared for them like one would a son, and as far as he knew they cared for him as one would a father.

" _I do love my family,"_ the captain thought happily to himself as he closed his eyes with a content sigh.

"Treville?"

Said man's eyes flew right back open again and he jerked forward in his chair as Athos' soft – no, sorry, _annoying_ , because he was one of the annoying ones - voice reached his ears.

The four musketeers pushed and shoved themselves into their captain's office – like children, because they were children – and then stood in a line, smiling widely at Treville, who felt his peacefulness slowly start to shatter like glass and vanish into thin air.

Could he not even get just one _moment..?_

"What are you doing here?" he asked with as much kindness – and confusion. He couldn't keep that out of his voice – as he could muster in his current… um… _situation_. "I thought you were delivering something for the Queen?"

"Oh," Athos said, "we were."

"But then the Queen realised that we had been going out on so many missions recently," Aramis told him.

 _How was this - in any way, shape, or form – TRUE?!_

"So she said we could take the day off and deliver it next week instead!" d'Artagnan informed him happily.

"And we thought to ourselves," Porthos said.

"That you would have missed us if we went."

 _Quite the opposite in fact._

"So we're going to stay here with you and keep you company."

"Because we really don't know what you'd have done today with us gone."

 _What, indeed…_

"Not a lot, I'd say. You don't tend to do much, do you?"

 _Ahem._

"He doesn't, now that I think about it."

"Mhm. All he does is shout at us."

"And yell at us."

"And scream at us."

"He should really take a break some time."

 _You're telling ME?!_

"Yes, he should. You hear that, Treville? Whenever you want a break, just tell us!"

"You don't have to be with us _all day_."

"We'll get bored of you at some point, I'm sure."

"But not today, because we have a day off, and we're going to spend it with you."

"Because you love us."

"And we love you."

What could he say? All things come with a price. Including love.


End file.
